Sweet Memories?
by indiegal
Summary: Set after lotf. All the boys are grown-up and Ralph decides to go into therapy to uncover some repressed memories. But does he really want to?
1. Chapter 1

Sweet Memories?  
  
Where do these stories come from? Sometimes I worry about myself!  
  
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Ralph rolled over in his lover's arms, wishing the light bursting through the window would go away and leave him to sleep. The young man against him mumbled something in his sleep, and Ralph gently pushed him away, reluctant to leave. Getting out of bed, he dressed quickly and headed down the stairs to get some breakfast, before exiting the house and cycling into the town centre.  
  
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Twenty minutes later, he was lying on a couch in an office he had never visited before. He could hear the steady 'tick tick' of the clock on the office wall. The office itself was painted a slightly nauseating pale yellow colour, which Ralph suspected to be the 'neutral environment'. Behind him, he could hear the creak of a chair as Dr Scott sat down and crossed his legs.  
  
"Hello, Ralph," said the doctor in a friendly tone. Ralph grunted. "Now.." Ralph heard the rustle of paper as the doctor flipped through some sheets. "Why are you here, Ralph?" It was an odd way to phrase the question, Ralph thought.  
  
"I'm here because there's a section of my childhood I have no memories of whatsoever and I'd like to try to recover them," he replied succinctly.  
  
"Right.." murmured the doctor. "What period of your childhood?" he asked, leaning forward and making the chair creak again.  
  
"When I was around 12." He didn't know why, but these questions were making Ralph awkward. He fingered the hem of his shirt and listened to the rustlings behind him as he waited for the doctor to continue.  
  
"Have you told anybody about this?" he asked after a moment. Ralph paused.  
  
"No," he replied, carefully.  
  
"Why not?" asked the doctor, seemingly curious. This was what Ralph had been dreading, the questions he couldn't answer for a reason he didn't know.  
  
"I don't know. Instinct," he added, glancing at the cracking white paint on the ceiling. The doctor made some interested-sounding noises and rustled some more, before putting down his clipboard and coming to crouch in front of Ralph.  
  
"What you have is a case of repressed memory. You have, most probably, experienced something bad and your mind has shut it out as protection against it. I can help you recover it, if.." he paused. "If that is what you decide you really want. Let me make it clear that your mind has probably shut this memory away for a good reason, and it could be unwise to uncover it." Looking at Ralph, the doctor shifted onto the couch, sitting just to the side of Ralph's hips. "You don't have to decide now. You can go home and think about it. In fact, that's what I suggest you do." Standing up, the doctor brushed down his trousers and extended a hand to Ralph to help him up. Taking it, Ralph also stood, finding himself just slightly taller than the doctor, who regarded him over his half-moon spectacles. Ralph nodded and picked up his bag, bid the doctor goodbye and left the building, collecting his bike and cycling on towards his workplace.  
  
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Please review and tell me if I should continue. If you don't I'll just carry on mwahahahahaha! 


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2  
  
Yay!! People reviewed!! Thank you so much!!  
  
El bastardo – yeah, I've read a couple of books about pyschology, one of them gave me the idea for this!  
  
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Ralph swung his bag down off his shoulder and walked into the main room of his house.  
  
"Jack?" he called, waiting for an answer. He didn't have to wait long. A tall, lanky red headed man jumped out from around the corner. He had outgrown his ugliness and was now quite good looking, Ralph thought. Ralph himself had just improved on his younger looks. He wore his sandy blond hair just below the ears, and he was muscular, taller even than Jack and usually tanned. Ralph ruffled Jack's hair.  
  
"Hallo," he remarked, ignoring Jack's growl and heading towards the kitchen. "Had a good day?" he called back over his shoulder. He heard footsteps padding behind him, and turned around just in time to be grabbed around the waist by Jack.  
  
"Yeah, ok," he replied with a grin. "You?"  
  
"Yeah, it was fine," Ralph replied carefully. For some reason, he didn't know why, he hadn't told Jack about his therapy. Today had been his third session, and, although he tried hard, Ralph still couldn't remember a thing about what had happened during that missing section of his life. Jack flicked him on the nose to indicate he didn't feel like being serious, and, clutching a couple of beers, the two men made their way through to the main room to discuss Jack's latest bizarre interpretation of the meaning of life.  
  
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Ralph awoke with a start. Why he had woken, he couldn't say. Rolling over, he saw the moonlight streaming through the crack in the curtains where they didn't join properly. Slipping out of bed, he padded over to the window, drew back the curtains and looked out. Roofs stretched as far as the eye could see, showing Ralph what the birds saw when they flew over London at night. It could be considered beautiful, he thought, with the moonlight reflecting off the slate and bouncing off windows. Here and there, a light shone through a window as if to prove that the city was alive.  
  
Pulling the curtains as far across as he could to darken the room a bit more, Ralph turned back to the room. There was a bit of moonlight reflecting off Jack, giving him an oddly surreal look. Ralph gazed across fondly at him. He had known Jack for a long time. He couldn't quite remember where and when he had met him, he had just been there. They had gone to high school together, and then to college. After college, Ralph had finally got up the courage to tell Jack how he felt about him and had been delighted to find that Jack had the same feelings. They had been together ever since, moving into this house after college.  
  
Ralph tried to remember what had woken him. He had been dreaming, he knew. It had been a strange dream. He had been standing on his head in the middle of an island, when a fat boy had come up to him and pushed him off a cliff. At the bottom he had met Jack, as a young boy, along with lots of other boys with painted faces, who had shouted something at him. Ralph tried to remember what they had shouted, but it hurt his head. He dismissed it as influenced by the beer and crawled back into bed, curling around Jack, to await the morning.  
  
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Sorry for the short chapters, I really am! My muse only works part time… 


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3  
  
Yay!! More people reviewed!!! Thank you so much!!! *dances*  
  
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Ralph bustled around his kitchen, making coffee as quietly as possible so as not to wake up Jack. His hand slipped as he picked up the kettle, pouring boiling hot liquid onto his foot, and he cursed himself under his breath for not concentrating properly. He had been thinking about the strange dreams he had been having. After the first one, he had had a more disturbing one, which involved him being beaten up by lots of other boys, including Jack and the fat boy from his last dream. When he had eventually got back to sleep after lying awake for a long time, he dreamt he was lying in a tent in the middle of the same island, but this time it was on fire and the flames were crackling around the edges of his tent, but he could see no way out. Picking up his bag and abandoning his coffee, he headed out of the front door towards the garage and his bike.  
  
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However much he tried to ignore it, Ralph could still here the irritating 'tick, tick' of the clock on the wall. Suppressing a growl, he heard Dr Scott clear his throat behind him.  
  
"So," the doctor started. "You've been having strange dreams? Do you think the dreams are related to each other in any way?"  
  
"Well, yes, they do seem to be," said Ralph, struggling to put his dreams into words. "I mean, in two of the dreams I was on an island, and Jack and a fat boy were in two, and there was a sort of fear or violence, or something threatening, in all of them." He paused. "Does that make any sense?"  
  
"Right," Dr Scott murmured. "Yes, it does. Would it surprise you an awful lot if I said I think that these dreams have been influenced by our therapy and are actually fragments of your repressed memory. Not actual complete memories, but parts of the dreams really happened, whether to you or to someone else." Ralph nodded.  
  
"No, that doesn't surprise me. I had thought of it. That's probably why I mentioned them." As Ralph spoke, the doctor rose from his chair and came to sit on the edge of Ralph's couch.  
  
"How do you feel about hypnosis, Ralph?" he asked, leaning forward as if to whisper a secret. Ralph shrugged.  
  
"I don't really know much about it," he answered honestly. The doctor nodded, indicating comprehension.  
  
"It wouldn't take much, really. All you need to do is relax. Let's try experimenting, shall we?" When Ralph nodded agreement, he continued. At the doctor's command, he closed his eyes and leaned back into the couch, trying to relax. He heard the doctor's voice coming from a place far away and above him.  
  
"Now, since we don't have any memories at all, we're going to use a little guesswork. Remember your first dream? I want you to put yourself back on that island, on your head. Do that now." Ralph visualised himself standing on his head in the island from his dreams. All at once, images came flooding into his head.  
  
*He was standing on his head in the middle of the island. There was jungle on all sides of him, but where he was currently, the plants and creepers had been broken so there was a giant damaged scar down the middle of the island. The heat was stifling, and when he looked at the reversed fat boy in front of him, he saw his clothes were sticking to him with sweat.  
  
"No grown-ups!" Ralph said suddenly. He didn't mean to say it, it just slipped out. Now, as he watched from inside his younger self, a scene replayed itself, with him acting a part he didn't know he knew. The fat boy thought for a moment.  
  
"That pilot."  
  
Ralph allowed his feet to come down and sat on the steamy earth.  
  
"He must have flown off after he dropped us. He couldn't land here. Not in a plane with wheels."*  
  
Ralph suddenly jerked back into reality. He found himself hot, as if he really had been on the island. The doctor was looking at him with a mixed expression of concern and triumph etched on his face.  
  
"Piggy," said Ralph. His voice came out a bit hoarsely, which surprised him. "The fat boy's name was Piggy."  
  
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Hmm… weird chapter!! You know you want to review… oh go on… please? Simon'll hug you… 


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